It’s hard to write one of these sorts of heavy metal confessional books for a few reasons. One is that anyone who was listening to INXS and U2 back in the day will care little about your opinions of the best Saxon album or the most authoritative Anthrax lineup. The other is that people who were into this sort of music will endlessly disagree with you about what year was the most awesome Monsters of Rock, so you might alienate them with your opinion. Nevertheless, Seb Hunter lays it all out for us here: his early addiction to AC/DC, his later worship of Iron Maiden and Hanoi Rocks, and his attempts to pick up a guitar and slam out the three chords needed for a good garage band.

Like Klosterman’s oft-compared Fargo Rock City, I didn’t entirely agree with some of Hunter’s judgements and statements. (Motorhead’s 1916 a concept album?) Maybe my background in Midwest America was different than his in England, but we both worshipped many of the same groups, so the common ground made this worthwhile. I also experimented with very amateur attempts to put together the next Metallica with bad instruments and worse musicians on a Sears tape recorder, so I applaud his ability to tell his story. This is good writing and a great bunch of episodes, although all came to a closing a bit sooner than I wanted it to. Overall, a good book if you’ve got a leather jacket in the back of the closet and still remember the pre-Nirvana days with fondness.